It is not very clear when it was that Rosario Murillo, the wife of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, became a new age convert. For years she has been known to consult the stars and tarot readers and to be very susceptible to superstition.

In the years before her husband was elected president in November 2006, she used to write op-ed pieces that recorded the phase of the moon along with her signature. As he began his term in office in January of 2007, it was her decision that he wouldn't occupy the building donated by Taiwan to house the presidential offices. Apparently, she found that the building's bad vibes had brought death to the families of two former Nicaraguan presidents. One of President Aleman's sons died tragically in a farm accident and two sons of the next president, Enrique Bolaños, also died, one from a stroke and the second one from leukaemia.

To this day, Daniel Ortega carries out his presidential business from the Sandinista party headquarters, a group of buildings that includes the presidential couple's home. The meeting hall where Ortega receives foreign dignitaries and gathers his cabinet for important policy announcements has as a backdrop a very 1960s psychedelic mural that features a hand which is supposed to protect and strengthen the presidential couple's power. A lavish quantity of fresh flowers arranged along a stage - you would not guess Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America - frames each of their public appearances.

At the presidential headquarters, people who have been summoned to be interviewed for party or governmental jobs have reported that they have sat for long periods in an empty waiting room only to be told that the "compañera", as Murillo is referred to by her staff, has "seen" them, and that they need to go to a certain address in order to have their aura cleansed.

A thin woman who wears three or four rings on each of her fingers and many turquoise and silver bracelets on her arms, Murillo's rise to power within the Sandinista party is said to be the result of her willingness to side with her husband when her daughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, publicly denounced her stepfather, accusing him of having sexually abused her since she was 11 years old.

Murillo appeared publicly to deny her daughters claims, accusing her of having been "brainwashed". Her stance won Murillo the influence Ortega had never previously allowed her. He appointed her campaign manager both in his unsuccessful run in 2001, and in 2006 when he finally became president. It was her idea that neither Ortega, nor any Sandinista candidate should grant press interviews during the campaign, or participate in presidential debates. It is clear she is quite aware of the power of words and the ill use her husband tends to make of them.

After he was elected, Ortega declared he would favour women's participation in the government and would start by sharing 50% of his power with his wife. Even though she has never been an elected official, Murillo is nowadays the de facto co-president of Nicaragua. As head of the government's press office, she has banned cabinet members from speaking to the press without her consent. Those who have dared defy her have been fired on the spot. Dionisio Marenco, Managua's Sandinista mayor and Ortega's longtime friend and loyal collaborator, has recently fallen from grace and become the object of Sandinista hostilities because he criticised Murillo's arbitrary methods and decisions.

"Socialism yes, Chayo, no" reads some of the graffiti in Managua. "Chayo" is a nickname given to women called Rosario in Nicaragua, but everyone knows which Chayo the sign refers to.

In popular polls, Murillo has one of the lowest approval ratings of any politician in the country. In spite of this, her husband has appointed her national coordinator of their pet project: citizens' councils. These are their version of "direct democracy", a national web of neighbourhood groups run by loyal party cadres through which the government channels money and foodstuffs along with favours and political influence to those who agree to join. Although the national assembly refused to grant constitutional status to these councils or allow them to receive government funds, Ortega and Murillo have gone ahead with their plans vowing to "defeat the rightwing forces who oppose granting power to the people". They are betting that these parallel structures will provide the kind of control and influence they seek. If they manage to set them up, they will have closed a power loop that includes the judicial and electoral institutions that are effectively under their control.

Perhaps to lessen the effect of Ortega's rampant and incoherent rhetoric, Murillo lends pomp and circumstance to their public appearances, staging weekly events carefully choreographed with more flowers, music, pink and turquoise drapes and the presence of ambassadors, government ministers and dance groups who patiently listen to Ortega's words, accompanied by music.

Murillo and Ortega have eight children, six of them male, and already adults. When their mother was asked by the press why they accompanied the couple on official visits, sometimes bringing either their girlfriends or their children and nannies, Murillo responded that all of them carry out government functions.

Her bony figure, clad in vivid colours that echo the rainbow framing the giant posters of her husband all over the city, Murillo is enshrining what seems to be the reign of another dynasty in Nicaragua. Never mind that she's preaching direct democracy; her vision for the a new era is equally ruled by auras and astronomical influences.